Systems that employ penetrating devices to defeat unexploded ordnance and/or buried land mines are known. Particularly pertinent to the invention are projectiles such as flechettes, darts or arrows (referred to generally hereinafter as “arrows”) designed to penetrate through dirt, sand, and/or water as well as the casing of targets such as unexploded ordnance or buried land mines, in order to deliver a payload designed to neutralize the explosive material within these targets. These devices use kinetic energy to “break-up” or fracture the explosive material within the target, allowing a neutralizing agent to contact the fractured explosive material. The neutralizing agent is normally some type of material that will burn the explosive material in the target but not detonate it (for example, the hot decomposition products of a propellant) or chemically react with the explosive in the mine in order to complete its neutralization.
Small incendiary or pyrophoric arrows are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,650 discloses an explosive incendiary projectile equipped with a hollow cylindrical as well as aerodynamically configured copper jacket having a tubular penetrator consisting of a heavy metal with an explosive charge. With consideration to the relatively small caliber (12.7 mm), a sufficient penetrating effect with additional lateral effect is alone not achievable due to physical reasons.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,175 discloses a dart having an elongated body with a high temperature incendiary fill, a nose section shaped to provide cavitation upon passing through a displaceable mass, firing means including an axially displaceable firing pin operative upon contact with a non-displaceable mass, and a fulminate primer activated by said firing pin communicating with said fill. The high temperature incendiary fill candidates include titanium-boron-Teflon with CTBN as the binder, titanium-boron-Teflon with VitonA as the binder, titanium-boron with ammonium perchlorate with VitonA as the binder, aluminum potassium perchlorate with VitonA as the binder and aluminum iron oxide with VitonA as the binder.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,842 discloses a kinetic energy driven projectile for defeating unexploded ordnance or buried land mines. This projectile has been developed to address the specific problem with similar devices in that the kinetic energy by itself does not sufficiently fracture the explosive material within a mine in order to fully defeat the mine. This invention adds a small amount of insensitive high explosive material that is cap sensitive to one tip of the projectile, along with a novel initiation mechanism, so that the detonation of the high explosive material can more fully fracture the explosive material within a mine. This allows a neutralization agent to completely react with all of the explosive material within the mine, thereby consuming the entire fill.
Projectiles that contain a relatively small amount of incendiary or explosive composition cause relatively small resultant explosions or reactions. Additionally, because the incendiary or explosive composition is configured to ignite substantially simultaneously with the impact of the projectile on a target, the explosion or other reactions are often complete before they can inflict substantial additional damage to the target.
There is therefore a need for, and it would be advantageous to have arrows that do not suffer from these disadvantages.